The federal government has given $23 million to Islamic Relief and the National Council of Canadian Muslims, two Islamic groups in Canada, to fight anti-Muslim hate crimes. Andrew Lawton argues that the money is being used to fuel an Islamophobia industry in Canada.
00:00:00.000It seems like just yesterday the federal government was passing M103, the anti-Islamophobia motion that was supposed to make Canada a better place.
00:00:07.360You know, the one that called for a whole-of-government approach to curbing Islamophobia.
00:00:12.520Well now, under that M103 plan, $23 million has been given by the federal government to Islamic Relief and the National Council of Canadian Muslims, two Islamic groups here in Canada.
00:00:24.100The fact that that money is being given for a very unclear purpose reinforces the problem that I was sounding the alarm about and many other people months ago,
00:00:33.720which is that M103 was creating or bolstering an Islamophobia industry in Canada.
00:00:39.660People that are profiting off of stoking fears that Canada is a hateful place or an anti-Muslim place.
00:00:46.160And when you look at the actual hate crimes data published by the federal government, by Statistics Canada, that just isn't the case.
00:00:52.600One notable study looked at data from 2015, finding that there was a 60% increase year over year of anti-Muslim hate crimes.
00:01:01.560Now, when you look at it in percentages, it sounds bad, but in actuality, that was 159 incident.
00:01:07.580Still less than there were incidents of anti-Semitism that same year.
00:01:12.080Also that year, a 58 or 59% increase in anti-Catholic hate crimes.
00:01:17.540Where's the motion to condemn Catholicophobia?
00:01:19.840The fact of the matter is, we're dealing with minuscule numbers here, which is why percentages have been used to blow out of proportion how bad the problems really are.
00:01:30.800Now, this isn't to say that we should ignore hate crimes and bigotry that take place.
00:01:37.420But we're not going to get to the destination we're trying to by buying our way there.
00:01:41.980And certainly not by funding organizations that have been making these asinine claims.
00:01:47.160The National Council of Canadian Muslims, for example, said that hate crimes in 2015 could be blamed on the federal election, blamed on Stephen Harper.
00:01:56.220Jerry Butts, the principal advisor to Justin Trudeau, made a very similar claim when that study came out.
00:02:01.640We have to look at these things in the broader context.
00:02:04.960But $23 million is not going to get us to peace and harmony.
00:02:08.560It's just going to get some people rich off of what is really a denigration of how well integrated Canada really is.
00:02:15.200For the True North Initiative, I'm Andrew Lawton.
00:02:17.400The True North Initiative, I'm Andrew Lawton.